The author's views are entirely his or her own (excluding the unlikely event of hypnosis) and may not always reflect the views of Moz.

Mike's disclaimer: This is not a post about how awesome I am, or how there is only one way to build an internet marketing agency. It's a combination of stories and thoughts about what I have gone through building Nifty Marketing.

When I started in 2009 there was very little information online about starting, running, or growing an Internet Marketing Agency. The ones that did exist were from superstars that charged a billion dollars an hour. I am not a superstar. My company started in Burley, Idaho. Here's a rap about my town I wrote.

My hope with this post is that a few of you who are out there hustling will benefit from doing some of the things that I did, and most of the things that I didn't.

Start smart

I was in my final semester at BYU-Idaho and had accepted a job to be the chief marketing officer of Rove Pest Control after spending my summers during college as a door-to-door salesman for them. I thought my future was set. But, due to some changes at Rove I knew that I was going to have to have to find a different career. My wife was pregnant, we had just started building a house in Burley, and I had a full load of credits. My two favorite classes were a basic HTML class (that used Don't Make Me Think as the textbook) and a web business class for which we had to start an online business and make/lose money. Naturally, as any true Idahoan would do, I started HugeIdahoPotato.com and sold potatoes bigger than heads to people across the country. The website sucks; I'm pretty sure I got it penalized within a year of creating it. But I fell in love with internet marketing in the process of building that site, and I keep it up as a remembrance of where I started.

Lesson 1: Start with a reason that's more than money

After making around $100 on the site I knew that I had found my career choice. I also knew that I was going to live in Burley, Idaho, and that I wanted to bring non-agricultural jobs to the town. I can't tell you how sad it is for many of my friends who grew up in a town they knew they couldn't move back to if they wanted to make a decent living. I wanted to change that. I still do. It's one of the main driving points for me. Of course you need to make money, but if that is the only thing you are looking for as a business owner then eventually you will fail. You will make decisions that aren't for your clients, or for your staff, or for the community; you will get short-term gains and create a long term failure.

Lesson 2: Start by interning/working at an agency

This is possibly my biggest regret of my career. I started Nifty Marketing with literally no experience at all. I had no friends in the industry, I had no idea what I was doing, how SEO companies were structured, or even how to do anything beyond what I had learned in college. I dove into blogs, but at that time I didn't know who to trust and read some really awful advice. I was not a good SEO. I was not a good PPC advertiser. I could have saved myself at least two years if I had worked for someone who could have pointed me in the right direction first.

Lesson 3: Focus on something specific

Business wasn't going very well. I had a few clients, and I decided I needed some help, so I signed up for SEOBook. There was a feedback forum, so I posted my super-awful website for Nifty Marketing. I didn't even own the domain at the time. (I had TheNiftyWay.com, and it wasn't until later—by some good grace of the heavens—that the person who owned NiftyMarketing.com let it go, and I bought it for $7.99 with a GoDaddy code.) When I posted my site on SEOBook, I got brutal feedback. People told me it sucked. But someone in the forum said something that changed my life forever.

He said something like:

"You offer SEO, Web Design, and PPC. That is exactly the same as 100,000s of companies around the world, who by the looks of things are better than you at it. What can you be the best at? What can you become known for?"

The comment hit me like a ton of bricks. The few clients I had at the time were really small businesses in Idaho, and I had been spending a lot of time in Google Maps. I realized that I enjoyed that aspect of marketing, and was getting clients ranked. So, I redesigned my site, changed my messaging, and decided to focus. I became a local SEO.

Lesson 4: Start with networking, not cold calls

I remember quite vividly trying to use my door-to-door sales skills to try and cold call businesses to get work. I grabbed a phone book and called people with big ads and no websites because I figured that they had budget. What I found was that I was caller #5 for that week offering the same thing as everyone else. Worst of all, everyone "knew a guy who knows a guy who could do it" for them. So, I put away the phonebook and started talking to my friends and asking if they knew people who needed websites and marketing. That's when leads started coming in. Then, I wrote an email to David Mihm on August 7, 2009, and asked him how I could become an expert in the local search field. This was his response:

The best advice I can give you is to optimize the local listings of a bunch of clients. The more you "play" in the space, the better you'll get at teasing out the parts of the algorithm that really matter.

I immediately dove into every one of these sites and learned everything I possibly could about local search. I took notes, and then I started testing and haven't ever stopped.

While doing that, I realized the most valuable networking lesson I ever learned was to simply share. I started blogging, which led to guest posts on SEJ, and I attended a few small conferences, one of which was the first ever LocalU. I offered to help any way that I could. Fast forward to 2013, and I am a LocalU Faculty Member and speak at conferences year-round. It isn't because I am special. It's because I am passionate about the space and I am willing to share information and help as much as I can. Almost every client we have at Nifty Marketing comes as a referral from clients, friends, blog posts, webinars, and conferences. Not one client came from a cold call. I will forever be in debt to David Mihm and the rest of the local search community for teaching me such a valuable lesson.

Lesson 5: It's good to have funding, it's better to have partners, and it's best to bootstrap alone

From the first year of my business until now I have had opportunities to get funding and take on partners. I have never done it. I am not saying that it's bad to do either of these things, but if you take a close look at our industry you will see that a lot of funded companies and partnerships don't make it.

I remember very clearly going to dinner with some guys from Blueglass in my first year and thinking, "Man, I wish I could be part of that company." And while I respect the founders a great deal they took a massive risk and it didn't workout. Many of them had successful businesses before then, and while the idea of a Mega Company that can make tens or hundreds of millions is alluring, the chance of you being successful and earning more on your own is better. Sure, extremely fast growth and funding means you come to market quicker. But by growing at the slow rate of 2x per year (which isn't that slow), I have been able to continually innovate and offer better services without taking do-or-die risks.

I am very glad I bootstrapped. I own 100% of my company. I can make 100% of the decisions about its future. I don't have to pay a silent partner a large chunk that makes cash flow an issue. I don't have to make short-term decisions for a board that hurts the long-term vision I have. And I make enough that I stopped caring about the money around year three; slow and steady wins the prize.

I know that there are many successful companies that haven't gone the way of solo bootstrapping. At the top of the partnership list for me is Avalaunch Media. But in order to do what they have done you have get big enough to support multiple owners and find amazing partners that can all pull in the same direction. With around 50% of marriages failing, how many partnerships in business actually work out? They are definitely not the norm, and I respect them immensely for it.

Grow smarter

Lesson 6: You are in the business of providing a service, not SEO

I remember becoming a good SEO. I also remember getting amazing results for clients and still getting complaints from them. I thought they were the problem. Then I realized I was. I thought back to the days of pest control and remember the company training techs to take their time at customers' houses. You see, you could service a house in 15 minutes or even less if you hustled. But if you did that, customers would complain that the work was sloppy and it shouldn't cost so much. Instead, you should take your time, get down on your hands and knees, and look around. Take notes and pace yourself. Then, customers felt like the service was worth it. They weren't paying for the product. They could buy the product at Home Depot. They were paying for the service.

Comparing this to Internet marketing, I knew I had done a great job gaining more traffic, but the clients had no idea what was being done. They didn't understand what they were paying for and subsequently thought that I was unnecessary. Most small businesses don't care or understand what a title tag, meta description, an exact match, a naked URL, duplicate content, etc is. So telling them you changed/created these in a report without actually showing them physical pictures is pointless.

We started creating custom reports with tons of arrows and screenshots explaining the work that we were doing. We starting giving them a complete list of the links and citations we were building. We stopped sending over a raw list of traffic counts and started providing analysis of the traffic that websites were getting, and our clients stopped complaining that they didn't know what we were doing. Clear communication is what the business of service is all about.

I was doing everything myself. Everything. Then, I tried to have some people on oDesk help me. My wife even did some of the citation work. The only problem was all the information was in my head. I had very little of the processes and information organized, and I didn't have time to focus on organization when I had so much client work, sales, and bookkeeping to do. That is what The E-myth is about. It talks about the difference between being a technician and being a business owner. It talks about the need to build your business like a franchise with training manuals, easy to follow processes, and the need to not burn yourself or your first few employees out.

When I read this book, I changed my business, and I have never looked back. We were able to start hiring people locally instead of having contractors on oDesk, and we centralized information and grew. While we aren't perfect at systems and delegation, we could have never grown without improvement in those areas. It's still the case.

Lesson 8: Raise your prices; raise your minimums

When I was the only employee in my company, doing everything myself, I could still make good margins and be the lowest price around. I took clients at $200-$500 per month, built some websites, and put tons of hours in, and as long as I could get to where I had $40-50k per year in revenue, I had a decent wage for Burley. That was my first goal. I could be flexible with what I made and could literally have no cost other than a couple of tools and my personal time. Employees, though, cost more than time. Employees cost money. And regardless of how much money you bring in, an employee's wage is constant. If I wanted employees that were good, there way no way I could maintain my pricing and minimums, providing the level of service that was needed. We had to raise prices. We changed our minimum to $1,500 and determined that we would do work for no less than $100 per hour. The types of clients got better, and we had enough revenue to bring in talented people who increased the quality of our work. I know that many SEO firms/companies can charge a lot more than $100 per hour, and we do as well, depending on the type of project—but for the average small/medium business this is a price that they can afford and you can do good work for.

Lesson 9: Learn when to pass on bad clients

When I was hungry I took whatever client walked through the door. I took abuse. Emails that called me names, clients who would not listen to my advice and would then blame me when things went wrong. Clients that paid three or four months late but would complain when I didn't answer my phone on the first ring.

I kept them because I felt like I had to have the revenue. What I didn't realize is that if I had taken the time I was putting into their project and put it elsewhere, I could have replaced the revenue plus a lot more and had a much better quality of life.

If you are not happy, then no amount of money will make up for it, so fire your bad clients, pass on the red flags, and figure something else out. Remember Lesson 1.

Retain

Lesson 10: Be trustworthy

The fastest way to lose clients and employees is to lie to them. If you want both to stick with you through thick and thin, then there has to be 100% trust. I personally think that the more transparent you can be all around the more you will be trusted.

One of our core values at Nifty is to be "willingly naked." Not literally, but figuratively. We have to be willing to share what we learn, take feedback, tell our clients the brutal truth even if we know they don't want to hear it. But you have to be willing to take feedback yourself.

Lesson 11: Reward your team

I am not going to pretend to be good at this. I know I should say "thank you" about a thousand times more than I do. Instead, I find myself more apt to criticize when things go poorly. It's something I am hoping to constantly get better at. The team at Nifty is amazing and they take a ton of stress, responsibility, and problems on themselves and do an awesome job.

Here's a few things that I have done at times:

Thank-you gift cards

Revenue sharing

Company lunches

Pop-Tarts (long story)

Big Christmas parties

The best office in Burley, Idaho (complete with a moose, a monster, bricks, and staked firewood)

Lesson 12: Auto-renew your contracts

When it comes to smaller businesses, I have found that month-to-month contracts that auto-renew and are paid by automatic credit card last longer than contracts that are 3, 6, or 12 months with renegotiations required. Bottom line, people don't like re-signing up for a committed amount of time. Especially small business owners who believe the word "contract" is a cuss word.

Change

Lesson 13: Never stop learning new things

There are many search companies that fall behind. It's because they don't change. They keep blasting away at the same spammy links, the same old school designs, and the same tactics from 5-10 years ago, and they wonder why a massive amount of their client portfolio drops in rankings.

I personally start every morning by reading blogs, and I have for years. The staff spends the first part of every day doing the same thing, and we pass around articles that make an impression. It keeps us constantly thinking about innovation and learning from our great community. Another way to keep up is to constantly pitch to speak at conferences. You have deadlines around which you can build tests and case studies, and you will do everything you possibly can to be up on the latest news in the industry because you never know what questions the attendees might ask you.

Lesson 14: Request feedback

The best way to find issues in your organization is to request feedback from your staff and clients. The other day, we had a client that paused his account. This is usually a soft way to end the relationship. But, upon asking for his feedback, he said he loved working with his project manager and the work we had done, saying he would be back on track in 2 months. Then he mentioned he was hoping for faster results on a side project we were doing for him. Whose fault was it that he felt that way? It was ours. I took the opportunity to clear up the miscommunication and he was very grateful for it. If we hadn't asked for the feedback, we might not have ever heard from him again and he definitely would have had the issue on his mind.

Lesson 15: Be pleased, but never satisfied

Nobody is perfect. Which means there is always room for improvement. There is always more than can be done, and there is always a better way. The day you stop growing and say that "it's good enough" is the day that a competitor is going to come in and do more that you are willing to.

We have redone our proposal process multiple times. We haven't ever been bad at it, but every time we go back to the drawing boards there is something more that we find that helps to bring in better clients. Right now we are testing out a live walk-through of the proposal, as compared to just sending over a PDF and asking for questions.

SAVE

Lesson 16: Content isn't king, cash is

If you want to run a successful business of any type, then ensure that you aren't running cash-poor. I have followed Dave Ramsey's personal financial guidelines for my business and find that it's very conservative. While it might limit the speed at which we grow, it eliminates a massive amount of risk.

Dave recommends having a personal emergency fund (and in this case business fund) of 3-6 months of expenses on hand at all times. That means that if you are going to pay yourself (your only start-up expense) $3,000 per month, then you should have between $9,000-$18,000 in cash before starting up. At $65,000 per month of expenses, you should have between $195,000-$390,000 in reserves. That's a lot of cash on hand for a small business, but if clients unexpectedly drop, or major industry changes necessitate a completely new model, you will have the cash to make good decisions and not desperate ones. I started out around the six-month reserve when I was smaller, and as time has gone by and we have a more diversified revenue stream, I am comfortable between 3-4 months of cash on hand.

Lesson 17: Pay yourself modestly, and get out of personal debt

I pay myself $4,000 per month. The rest goes to growing the business, savings, and other ventures. Now, you need to realize that I live in Burley, Idaho, and it's literally hard to spend money here. I could pay myself $2,000 if it wasn't for Amazon Prime. But, at a very young age, my wife and I decided that we would have no personal debt and worked really hard to pay off our house and buy cars with cash.

I know many financial experts will tell you that leveraging your home is the best financing you have but let me tell you that the freedom of owning your house outright means that you can make better business decisions over the course of your life. You wont have the "what if I lose my family's home" question circling around in the back of your mind and you can actually take bigger risks, and never make business financial decisions based off of your personal financial needs.

Lesson 18: Don't sign up for every Internet marketing tool under the sun

Tool subscriptions are reoccurring costs. It's very easy to spend thousands of dollars a month on different tools you don't have the cash to do that when you start up. When I first started, I only used Raven Tools, but quickly added a list of 10 to 15 tools like Moz. Occasionally, we have to go through the list of tools and find out what we are actually using and get rid of the rest. I'm not going to pretend there is one tool to rule them all, because everyone has very different needs. The key is to quickly identify which tools work for you and which don't, and to stop paying monthly for the ones that don't.

Lesson 19: Diversify

If you get to where you own a successful guest-blogging company, or a successful SEO company, or a successful content-marketing company, or whatever niche you decide to work in, then realize the problem with a niche is that you are putting all of your eggs in one basket. If that basket disappears, you're screwed.

Try going after more than one niche. We opened a division focused on SEO and website development for lawyers called NiftyLaw.com. I also owned a newspaper in my home town, and am working on some new projects so that I am not 100% reliant on Internet marketing revenue.

Lesson 20: Find a few things to help save yourself

Owning a business is hard work. It's mentally draining, and it's very hard to shut down your mind after constantly thinking. There will be times where you need to save yourself from burning out, so ensure that you have hobbies that can get your mind completely off of work. I golf, mountain bike, and travel with my family. I also don't do any work on Sundays at all.

Overall

I have loved starting an Internet marketing company. It's been hard; I'm going gray and I'm only 29.

I know that you might not agree with certain things I think are important, and that's fine. The best part about business is that it's a "choose your own adventure" storybook with no "right" answers.

Please add your own questions and advice in the comments. I hope that this is a post that can have more insight in the comments than the article itself, and I look forward to learning from all of you!

About NiftyMarketing —
Mike Ramsey is the President of Nifty Marketing, a local search marketing company in Idaho. He takes part annually in Moz's Local Search Ranking Factors study and is a founding faculty member of Local University. Mike also dabbles in photography and runs a hobby site called Photo Pie Backdrops. Mike has a wonderful wife, a rascal of a little boy, and two princesses.

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Comments
229

Mike, I just want to say that this post is a breath of fresh air. I saw the title and, if I'm honest, thought it would just be another post preaching about personal success. I couldn't have been more wrong!

The advice you give on scalability and business financing is spot on - we're a growing business focusing around digital marketing as a whole. One of the big issues that we had during the early growth stages was that we had taken on a load of legacy clients that paid a fraction of what the new clients we took on were paying. The thing was, they expected the same level of work, if not more.

This was a big issue for us and was draining our resources. We made the decision to bring in some interns to try and balance out the workload, but when you're clients aren't paying the money that they should be, you're only eating into your profit margins - we soon realised that we had to make the decision of saying to these clients that they either had to pay more or part company.

Although a touch decision, it was the best decision we made. We are incredibly careful with all of the clients that we take on, and although that might seem like a luxury to some businesses, I believe that it's a necessity for long-term growth.

Yeah, I have to agree about the title - I have to admit that at first it was a bit of a turn-off (reminded me of something someone like Neil Patel would publish, haha!), but I'm so glad I stayed and read the rest of the article as it ended up being a more humble account rather than anything remotely bragging or showy-offy. :-)

Neil Patel definitely has some bragging rights ;-) Though I don't agree with all of his philosophies I love his transparency. And the more successful a person is, and the more transparent they are about it, the more it sounds like bragging. As for me, most of the things I have learned come from making the wrong decision initially and taking the hard road. So, I can't be to proud :-)

I really appreciate your story Matthew. Those are the hard decisions that really test a company and even harder to make if you don't have money in the bank incase things go south for a while. I'm glad that the post didn't come off as a brag. To be honest, I don't think what our company has done is out of touch for anyone who makes good decisions and has a level of patience.

Hahaha. So, living in Burley, seniority by age is a big thing and with the newspaper I started locally, it was really hard to get people to take me seriously. Most just called me a kid and could relate embarrassing stories about me in my younger days. I always try to respond by saying "You are never too old or too young to make a difference until your dead. I just have a little more time than you." -- Most poeple don't like that quote so I need to come up with a new one.

Wow. Fantastic post, Mike! I wish I could give it 10 upvotes, not just 1.

Lesson 2 (start out at an agency) is a really good suggestion - I personally don't think that there's any way I could've gone self-employed if I hadn't worked at 2 different agencies over a period of 4 years. I'd like to add to it if I may: try working at a small/growing agency if you can. I was the 2nd person in in an agency that grew from 2 to 15-20 staff in just three years - I learnt so much working closely with the Managing Director and seeing first-hand how he ran the business, how he did sales, how he decided how to divvy up the work, etc.

Oh and these days, you should never cold call IMO (Lesson 4). Networking, word-of-mouth, recommendations and referrals are key. In fact, I use the USP that I don't ever cold call, which I think is a breath of fresh air to a lot of small business owners, who probably get numerous "we can improve your rankings for $50"-type emails daily.

I love your addition. I think even a step beyond that is to work for a start up one, and then work for a massive one. They have got to be completely different beasts and you would gain some great insight into the good/bad of both situations. I will still be flying by the seat of my pants. :-) There have been some times though I have thought about taking a month sabitical and going and working for an agency though. Maybe one of these days I will pull that trigger.

We have our own core values and mission at Nifty which has a lot of similarities to a TAGFEE philosophy.

Core Purpose

We want to help good people and businesses grow.

Nifty Core Values

We believe in being awesome.

Amazing

We don't believe a piece of content, a local listing, a website design, or a project is done until it is amazing. Enough said.

Willingly Naked

If we walked into a room naked, everyone would look. They might not like what they see, they might really like what they see. Either way, we are willing to show it all and not hide behind a veil of "propriety information" and will share all of our work and ideas with our clients and community.

Exact

We mean what we say. We do what we say. We never settle for sloppy lines.

Seriously Responsive

We believe in being available and fast. Changes happen in our industry and in our lives every day. We are very serious about staying on top of changes to algorithms, rules, emails, and messages.

Original

No one likes a copy cat. We believe in being pioneers and creating uniqueness in all the things we do. This doesn't mean that we don't celebrate others good ideas, we just make them our own and push for perfection in all we do.

Merry

We believe that life is worth living and working for. We don't want to work with people who are always negative and never satisfied or happy and we promise that we won't be a sour puss either. Marketing is fun and we love what we do.

Empathetic

We will always try to put ourselves in the shoes of clients, competitors, customers to come to a deeper understanding of how we can meet their needs better. We also believe that 99.9% of people are inherently good and deserve to be respected and loved.

I was going to add how important a culture statement is but you beat me to it! I'm in a very similar situation, having bootstrapped a company with no outside investment, no partners, and growing it rapidly over 4+ years from 1 to 8 employees (and counting). All that said, the single most important thing I've done happened only a month or two ago when I sat down and created our DWS Culture presentation.

Aligning my team with these values has been invaluable. On of the slogans from the presentation that has stuck is "We empower you (our team) to be awesome". We created 10 core culture values and they have all resinated with our group, made us stronger as a company, and even provided a way of vetting potential new employees.

It's difficult when you're the boss and refreshing to hear how other successful business owners have been through the same challenges.

Some good advice in this post. I think the problem many people face is that they think setting up an online marketing company is easy, when in reality it is not. It takes hard work long hours and a great team.

I know because I originally started my own marketing company, then I went to start the SEO division at a global agency which was very successful and now I am running my own company once more.

I agree 100% if you get to a certain level you need to set spend limits for clients. Also agree you need to know when to say NO!!!!

One thing which I notice businesses are wary to sign up for credit card contracts, I think you just need to work for 6-12 month contracts and then move for rolling payments ect.

We have very few clients that are unwilling to pay by credit card. It has never been a deal break for us and if someone is extremely persistent then we will invoice. For small businesses though, if a person is working on 2000 or under budgets I would try to be as close to 100% credit card as possible paid up front to ensure that you dont work too much for free. The bigger the clients we have, the less likely they are to pay by cc.

What did you like better? Running your own company or building the SEO devision for another?

Awesome post, Mike! The biggest lessons in my mind are your "what not to do" advice around clients and services. Every time I get a bad feeling about a client or a project that's just not the right fit I always feel better after walking away. I think your point about reading posts / learning every morning is a great one. It's easy to forget about self improvement and keeping up with the speed of marketing technology with client work always pressing. Again, really amazing post, Mike!

Those gut feelings are really important. I think it can go a step more though and identify the things that your gut tells you are bad, and make a guide so that not only you can identify it but anyone on your team can as well. It will also keep you honest to yourself.

From personal experience, Number 8 (Raise your prices; raise your minimums) is the single most effective thing an agency can do in order to go from surviving to thriving. Bigger businesses seem much more likely to go with an agency that charges higher rates, because they assume higher rates means higher quality and more professionalism, and I think they often do.

It also creates a level of respect. My favorite story about this is when Steve Jobs had the logo designed for the company NEXT by Paul Rand. He charged him $100,000 and presented it in a very classy manner compared to sending it in an email or something. But, he told steve jobs that he would pay no matter what and he wouldn't make any edits. I think we could all learn a lesson from him.

Thanks for the inspiring post Mike. I certainly found some peace in many of the lessons you've presented here as they are very similar to what I've experienced growing Mack Web in the last few years. This building a business thing is definitely not for the weak at heart :)

I love that you shared the lesson of focusing on what you're really good at. We're challenged with this a lot. We dropped web design and development when we switched our business model to web marketing and it's tempting to want to control that part of a client's project due to our years of expertise. Being true to where we add the most value is an exercise in focus and diligence and it has made a really big difference in our business.

The one lesson I've learned in the last couple years (which have been the hardest of the 10 that we've been in business) is asking for help. Find the right mentors. Seek companies and people who seem to have their stuff together and ask them for guidance in the places that you feel lost. As I grow this team there are so many things that I discover I don't have experience in as a leader, manager, or as a business owner. I've read a ton of books but nothing compares to people who've been there before you.

We've been really lucky that many of the brilliant people at Distilled have been willing to mentor not only me, but some of the people on our team. The fact that they're in our industry and can provide some kind of "yeah, we've experienced that too and here's what we did about it" is extremely comforting and helpful when you feel lost and alone (an incredibly common feeling when you're growing a business). I'm really thankful for mentors outside of our industry as well as they provide a very different perspective which is also vital to the growth of a business.

There's so many people who are willing to help if you just have the guts to ask.

Thanks again for your post Mike. Congrats on all of your success and I wish you the best as you guys move ahead.

I think you are exactly right about having good mentors. That has been my favorite part about conferences is getting to know those to have "been there, done that".

I haven't done this yet but have been thinking about putting together a board of advisors for nifty. I have my "go to" people to ask questions and bounce ideas off of. But I don't have this in any form of organized way and it really should be done.

What I would love to see is a conference (or at least more sessions) geared around the business of internet marketing. Instead of talking about tactics, I would love to learn from a diverse list of companies on lessons they've learned.

That would be pretty powerful Mike. Seems like Moz is really working to bring in more aspects to internet marketing than tactics. Not sure if you went to MozCon this year but there was some great stuff about culture and management. Rand's talk at SearchLove San Diego was all about operations and hiring. It may not be as popular as the tactic talks, but seriously helpful.

I wondered about putting together a board for Mack Web. Since we're not backed by funding I've always felt like maybe mentorship was it. I think Rhea over at Outspoken has a board. May be worth reaching out to her.

This is a simply awesome, both the post and the story. Being able to run your business your way is truly a freedom that you cant put a price tag on.

There is a lot of great information and I am glad to hear someone advocating that we just do right by the clients and not focus solely on the cash being brought in. Obviously we all need to get paid for our hard work, but if you focus on building good relationships with the "right clients" then that will all take care of itself.

Congratulations on all your success thus far and may there be plenty more to come Mike!

I'm not right now. I keep playing with the idea of going at it really hardcore. I think it would be fun. But to sell Idaho Potatoes, you have to become a potato broker and report to the Idaho Potato Commission so its an all in or an all out thing.

Thank you for writing/submitting such a concise post. Your experience is very similar to my own. I started my agency in 2008 and struggled until I selected a few niches to provide specific offerings to. Now I'll be rebranding with a new/revised name that can be a part of each niche without lthe agency losing focus and without confusing the target market.

Owning and growing an online marketing agency is not the same as owning a business online and that's where a lot of SEOs get stuck and lose money. Handling clients, streamlining processes, billing and accounting issues, payroll, sales are all a part of the business. This is done by the business owner until they're able to bring on people to delegate this to (at least, that's been my experience). Then comes the technical team: SEO, PPC/Banner ad specialist, Analytics expert, web designer, web developer, app coder, graphic designer, copy writer, email marketing specialist and a few more. Some team members can do more than1 or 2 skills, while others are truly specialists in their skill set.

Never stop learning new things, work closely with the client and the project, remember that a generous spirit attracts good people and hone the processes - so far, that's what's working for me.

Very inspiring write-up Mike. It's great to hear real-life experiences from those in the same field as yourself. There's a lot I've taken from here, and while I've taken a step back to learn more and to master my craft in specific areas, your story just gave me the nudge I needed to move closer to the entrepreneurship cliff ;)

Your lesson about "Never stop learning new things" is one that I stand-by very true to. Innovation is everything. I've trained my staff to stay up to date with the industry and to bring new ideas to the table whenever they come up. It's sparked great discussions, and many of which, turned into actionable tasks.

Thanks for this post, Mike. Great read for any entrepreneur, or entrepreneur to-bes.

Thanks jackson. I'm a big fan of pushing people off of cliffs. ;-) And speaking of jumping off cliffs...when I was 18 my friends and I spent a week a lake Powell and it was my first real cliff jumping experience. We jumped at around 70 feet. A group of us stood around looking down and finally one of my friends jumped. Then another, then another, and by the time it came to me I knew that I woudn't die because they went before me and were ok. So, I jumped. It hurt, but I didn't die.

I am very comfortable starting a business in a space where others have built something similar because I know it has/can be done. That was how Nifty was. What I really admire is people who jump first into something new. We owe the pioneers of this industry a lot. Litterally, they should tax us or something. ;-)

I really appreciate the kind words. I was nervous posting this much information and me personally. Its the first post I have ever done like it. Most are tactical, strategy based. But, it's been on my mind a lot lately and I thought moz would be the best place to share it.

I can relate with you on so many levels, but if I can mention just one, it is this: Start with networking, not cold calling.

The sales that are the 'easiest', the customers that love my business the most, and are equally excited for my success are from those that I have networked with. Asking for referrals is also much easier when asking someone that already knows and trusts you! I gather most entrepenuers (like me) are over eager and driven that they miss that valuable lesson to start with those they know.

I talk high school while growing from referrals. I don't regret that because a lot of those original clients are still around and came in from a solid friend or situation. You really need that base to build from and it was slow for me initially but very worth waiting compared to spending too much time on dead ends.

Thank you for posting this. I just started my own Internet marketing agency in June of 2013 with having past experience at an agency for over 6 years. You highlighted many of the same experiences I've had in starting my own agency, and I think you hit the nail on the head when you start off by stressing the importance that it has to be more than just money as your motivator. Your point about reporting is also extremely important. I have found, especially in my past agency experience, reporting on SEO is where you will lose a client, especially if there is a small amount of unhappiness on their part. You're not providing SEO, it's a service and they need to understand what you're providing to them that is going to help their businesses! Again, thank you!

It's post like these that make me appreciative of people like you who are so openly transparent about everything and are out to help others. It improves the perception of our industry and makes me so happy/proud to be a part of it!

Tight Work Mike! Even though the advice was solid and on-point. The writing and tone is what really pulled me in. I am like you; I make sure to get my reading in day and night, so with that comes a sense of urgency. Your speed reading skills begin to really manifest. There is no other way to get through the mountain of reading material.

However, it is important to continue to evolve and get better. Sometimes it feels like a real chore, especially on the weekends. Even Sunday's for me (sml). It is a necessary evil. You need to keep up, or you will get left behind. You also just never know when something is going to just rock it (like this!). This has been bookmarked! I even created a new category for it.

I expected to come in, skim, and peace out..cub scout (lol) Brother, you sucked me in. I chewed on every word, and savored every bite! Really good stuff. I only thought Idaho was good for potatoes (no offense jk :)

I am 100% on the same page about speed reading. I really appreciate you saying that you chewed on every word. I love when I come across posts that do that for me and honestly I am so ADD that its rare. The E-myth was that way, and lately Steve Jobs biography did the same.

Hi Mike, thanks for sharing your story with us - I've made a few mistakes since going solo a couple of years ago and I can relate to what you've written above. There are a lot of good lessons there which I'll refer back to again and again.

An inspiring post I must say. Although the 20 lessons are personal to Nifty but every marketer or newbie should find a takeaway from this post. Thankfully, the ideas are also practical. So, its possible to rise from zero to million!

This is a great post Mike! You mention that you're in a small town, and how you started with clients at $200-$500. Being in a similar situation, where I am trying to establish myself in a smaller city how did you make the jump? Money seems to be tight for most SMB's I approach, who are essentially my target for local SEO, etc. Any advice or stories regarding this and how you were able to overcome the smaller client base?

Networking. I have never had very many clients in Idaho. It became very apparent that their wasn't a search volume or a desire for internet marketing in the marketplace (though we did get 100 people to a localU event in Burley and brought David Mihm, Matt McGee, Mary Bowling, and Ed Reese into town for it) so I decided to focus on just getting referrals from anywhere and clients started coming in for random places. Largely through friends. A great place to start would be local networking groups, charities, etc. in order to start getting to know a local business community. If you serve them, they will come.

I was the same at the beginning, always saying yes to clients instead of saying no. Like you, I learned over time and because of this, I get to work with clients for longer periods and build greater success stories for them.

Geez, I wish I had read this back in 2010 when I started my Internet Marketing agency. Unfortunately, I gave up right when I shouldn't have but eventually went back to it. I started again with 1 client that I had worked with in my previous company which led to another and another, now I am up to 5; all of them came to me by referral (networking). I am growing slowly but have learned to specialize in one niche. I have learned every one of your lessons but didn't have the vision to keep going. This blog post has inspired me to think bigger about what I am doing now. Congratulations on your success!

Mike, thanks a huge lot for sharing your experience! I first ran into it when it came out here on MOZ. I didn't finish at first but the the first few thoughts stayed with me and I came back and just finished it. Some of these experiences sound familiar, others will have to explore. Thanks again!

I really hate it that it took so long before I saw your post and had time to read it; we are a bit busy here too. Anyone can say, "We do these same things," and it will sound trite, but I have to say there are a ton of similarities. What impresses me most is:

Lesson 1: Start with a reason that's more than money.

Why? Because of your age mostly. (Please do not take it that I am talking down to you, I am not and I tell people when I think they are doing that to people who work with me.) I have had many businesses, with my first real one at 25, and when I started drumBEAT, I was very clear on one thing: I was starting a business to have a positive effect on SMB's; if I could not do that, I was going to close the doors. To this day, I continue to preach that to all who work with me. When I was younger most of my business ventures were around the ability of the business to generate profits for me. While I do not knock anyone else for that, I just wanted to do it differently since I had the opportunity. I now realize what had been missing in making a business a true success. I now see how clients and employees and vendors come to truly love our company - they know we believe in what we are doing.

I also must say this was a great, well thought out, thorough post. I was truly stunned by what I read.

Thanks a lot Robert. Its advice I really had taught to me by my grandpa. He ran a heating and electric business for around 50 years and was truly loved in our community because he cared about helping more than money.

Every single item mentioned by you actually appeals and made me think. I am a firm believer that whatever we do there are best practices available to get most out of what we are trying to do, and the biggest challenges to keep ourselves on the path of improvement are 1) Embracing new thoughts 2) Executing new thoughts. It all boils down to these two.

'Nifty' article, Mike. Ha! No really, this was a great read, comments and all. I too have learned completely on my own, without any Agency experience, so pricing and proposals have been two of the most difficult areas for me. Not sure what all to include, for how much, etc., etc. Outsourcing and difficult clients is another thing I've struggled with in the past, but it's been an enjoyable experience overall, and it's so rewarding to see the smiles on their faces when they realize it's really working.

If I can offer advice to anyone else reading these comments it would be to do #2 before you go into business for yourself, or early on at least. That should make learning most of the other lessons a whole lot easier.

Anyway, glad to hear you doing so well, Mike. I wish you continued success!

It seems that most people that come from our situation say the same thing there. They wish they would have had some level of experience elsewhere simply to learn the operational side of the business. I would say the hardest thing for us has been company structure. Project managers in relation to SEO's, etc.

Great post Mike! I started an online marketing firm in Argentina several years ago and went through very similar experiences. I started as a SEO specialist and then learned quickly that SEO does not sell but solutions do. I truelly believe in bootstrapping and networking. Our best clients have not come in through a Google but through contacts. We rank in 3rd place in Argentina under the equivalent of SEO and get lots of RFQ (request for quotes). This is great to show clients but the truely impressive stuff has to do with conversiones that we accomplish for our clients.

I like the part about raising your prices in your post.

" We changed our minimum to $1,500 and determined that we would do work for no less than $100 per hour."

When I started the company, I would just take any client that sent me an email, now I am a lot more selective and happier.

Good luck as you continue to grow in Argentina. I would love to eventually be doing more outside of the US. I think there are some great opportunities and it sounds like your are crazy well positioned there!

Mike, this is one of the best internet marketing articles I have read in a long time. Thank you Mike! I love that you referenced Dave Ramsey Financial Freedom model and hard work. I feel that too many internet marketers are posting their Get Rich Quick models with pictures of ferrari's and infinity pools.

There are a lot of solid takeaways form this article, but I feel this is one of the best "I kept them because I felt like I had to have the revenue. What I didn't realize is that if I had taken the time I was putting into their project and put it elsewhere, I could have replaced the revenue plus a lot more and had a much better quality of life."

Hi Mike,I would like to say that your post is quite inspiring for me. I work in Marketing Agency in Brazil and I have been thinking about starting my own agency. Your text has some value tips.It's good to see the issues that I will have someone had them before and everything worked fine.

Thanks for sharing your story. I hope soon I have my own history to share with this great community.

Mike, having watched you from the beginning, just as I was starting my web design business in the same small town (and sharing the same birthday), I have always naturally compared myself to you... and have been impressed. One thing you have, that many others don't, is a fierce and driven competitive nature. I'm quite the introvert. You've always had great advice for me personally and I love your advice given here and aspire for OpenPotion to be as awesome as Nifty someday. I've learned some of these lessons... others I am still working on.

Since moving away, I sure miss our nerdy chats...

If you ever want to do business coaching, I'll be your first paid client. ;-)

congratulations and thank you for sharing your story! So motivating as a young internet marketer myself :) I think it's great that you started with local (your passion). Reminds me to follow my passions!

Thank you so much for taking the time to write this informative, educational and inspirational article. I'm just starting my business and it's resources like this that are the reason I'm able to attempt it all on my own with some level of confidence.

This article is refreshing and lined with gold. While most of the content on Moz is fantastic, I usually skim the long ones. This is the 1st long Moz post I've read in it's entirety. "Slow and steady wins the race" is sewn into my suit jackets as monograms and I couldn't agree more.

I haven't seen this much hard-earned, small-business wisdom in one article since I read Entreleadership. Keep it up.

Im a big fan of Entreleadership and have really wanted to go out for the week long seminar. I hear good things about it. Thanks for such a great compliment. Creating non "skimmable" content is something I always want to do.

This is a great post, Mike! It's definitely one of the best I've read recently. Thank you for being so transparent and honest about your experience building your company, you were definitely "willingly naked". I'm trying to build my business as a freelancer and I can relate with a lot of the frustrations you had.

Also, the picture of your family is adorable! The look on your son's face is priceless. :-)

I dont think you need seo in your name to be considered good. Look at some of the most famous companies who offer search products in our industry? seer interactive, portent inc, distilled, blueglass eu, etc. Even moz removed it from their name as an SEO usually does more than just SEO. I haven't adopted or subscribed to calling things inbound marketing and probably wont. But I do agree that SEO doesn't explain everything we do anymore.

I consider Fortune to be wealth. And to me wealth is very simply the difference between what you make and what you spend. If you can always spend way less than you make, you will be self sufficient and can whether any storm that comes. But I dont think that is just in regards to money, its in regards to energy, efforts, etc.

Hi Mike, I bought E Myth on your recommendation and eagerly await its arrival. A Lot of the information certainly rings true for us (we are a start up). I wondered if you could share what management tool and SEO tool you now use? We currently use Advanced Web Ranking but the constant development costs to produce and amend reports is starting to get under our skin. We are considering Raven as we have heard good things and possibly Basecamp as a management tool. Do you still use Raven?

All I can say is woww!! Gives me a boost to continue doing what I am. In a bid to safeguard/sustain my business, I am doing everything I can but those tips are life saver. One thing that I would blind pick from your experience is being determined and organised. Its difficult,k in fact its very difficult to satisfy a SME client in country like India. Service offering always includes augmentation; as every client seek such benefits even before a line is drawn. Digital Marketing Companies are yet to leave their mark here.

Great article! I can relate so much to many of your points as I run a small social media marketing agency. I had a question, on lesson 12, you suggest no lock-in contacts and getting auto renew contracts on a month to month basis. Do you find SMEs are willing to pay a $1,500 + monthly retainer on a company credit card?

Wow! Why did I not see this 18 months ago... (because I was obviously not up on the Moz blog as much as I should be). Mike, this advice is just as timely today, and totally relevant to me. I started my agency with no prior experience as well, and I echo what you said about working for an agency first--it would have shaved at least a year or two off of my learning curve. Thanks again for sharing!

PS: my wife and also try to follow a lot of Dave Ramsey's advice. Some of his investing advice I think is a little iffy, but overall solid information.

HugeIdahoPotato.com! That was hilarious! haha... Thanks for the great post as I begin to take this step into the realm of Internet marketing and do exactly what you have done. I have my niche picked out and a diverse portfolio of ideas in other businesses. It looks like I'm on the right track. I only have to build that cash reserve! I did plan on taking on partners through equity investments and selling shares. What do you think about that?

This post has inspired me to the core. I also live in a small town and plan to build a company like yours so that people could find some useful employment in the place. I was just browsing through the internet and searching for some tips to found my own internet marketing company when I stumbled upon your post.

So glad you could share this with us. It seems that the post is written for me to help me pursue my dream with utmost dedication and vigour. Wish I could build an internet marketing business like yours.

Again, thanks for the post. You have served as my biggest inspiration in my journey to fulfill my dream.

Hi Mike. Just wanted to say that I really identify with your first lesson. I'm hoping to move back to my home town which unfortunately lacks jobs. It sounds sad, but I'd love to create jobs and help boost the local economy.

I really enjoyed this post, and you are right there aren't enough out there about starting a company in marketing. I too stumbled upon digital marketing and chose to pursue this instead of continuing as a Business Analyst, even after years of exams and working my way up the corporate ladder!

When I first joined DR Adept I educated the owner about red flag clients (trouble) and gave him a list of who had to go. In letting those 5 clients go we now had the time and energy to take on 20 new clients. Even if you are desperate for money, bad clients drain you, they take up too much time and they usually want something for nothing.

We have always found face to face networking the best option, even as social media takes off we are still finding this the case. We have never cold called and 95% of our clients come to us through recommendations.

Enjoyed reading this. There's a very positive spirit to the article which I wouldn't mind betting is always there in your business and was factor number 21. Well done. Agreed with everything you said. Bootstrapping and solo inductions might not be the fastest way to grow but they might be the most satisfying.

HI, So glad I took the time to read your informative post, sorry to hear you're turning gray at only 29. The list of blogs to read has already been bookmarked, and I agree it would save time to get a job working for someone else in SEO first as a time saver. When I got to the part about "Don't Make Me Think" that was the 'closer' that kept me reading, I have been talking about that book for years, since the first edition.

I'm inspired, en pursuit to start my own agency beginning with consulting (minimal startup cost). I think I may suffer as I go against your advice and not get the insider experience 1st. But you've taught mem a valuable lesson. "Engagement" Took me 50 finger scrolls to get to the bottom of this page to leave you a few words, with confidence, knowing my opinion is valued by the author. I am taking away from this your listening skills, and that's what I will strive to give my customers. Thanks Ramsay.

Loved the post, thanks a lot for sharing! I'm in process of starting a niche consultancy so many of your point hit their respective spots.

But a note on cold calling - i've tried some smart but cold emailing (googling certain phrases, then having a quick look at the site, then seeing whether contact details are available, etc) and I must say this has gotten as good if not better results than good old networking. YMMV of course, subject to your prospects having an identifyer you can google.

"You offer SEO, Web Design, and PPC. That is exactly the same as 100,000s of companies around the world, who by the looks of things are better than you at it. What can you be the best at? What can you become known for?"

Fantastic post Mike, I stumbled across the Nifty blog towards the beginning of the year. Networking and having reasonable rates are definitely two major points I agree with for getting higher quality clients and being able to grow an agency.

Fantastic article. I absolutely agree with you when you say that we should start a business for a reason and not only to earn money. This reason will become the driving force for the business. If you are keen on learning new things and passionate about your work, you will go a long way.

our mission at nifty is to help good people and businesses grow. I try to make all decisions based off of that idea. There are a lot of ways to look at that statement and its what I think about 24/7. Im a big believer in eternal growth.

Outstanding article! As an agency owner you can't ever have enough good advice from people that are actually successful. I too will be reading this article over a few more times and will be applying some of these methods to my own business. Thanks!

I once heard that a person is more likely to be successful by surrounding themselves with successful people. I definitely have seen this be the case for me. The ideas I get from my colleagues at LocalU and other conferences about how to be better at business are priceless. I am very motivated by them.

Great post Mike. I can tell you genuinely care about your clients, and your business. I particularly love #1 - Start with a reason that's more than money. So many times entrepreneurs set out with the mindset of "How can I make a lot of money", and their business ends up a failure because their focus was in the wrong place.

If an entrepreneur's goal to to build a business around a passion of theirs & contribute to that community, then success is much more likely to follow; both financial & happiness.

Thanks Mike! A great eye opener and getting my priorities straight again! I think a major problem I have is not letting the bad ones go (although I asked 2 clients this year to take their business elsewhere) and asking way too little and getting the wrong clients.

I think that you have to let them go with class though. Never slam them, always be polite and take the "It's not you, it's me approach". People arn't used to getting fired from paying you to do something so they usually take it as a bit of a shocker and that can really backfire if you don't handle it correctly.

I usually start with something like "I think it is clear that you are unhappy and I'm not positve that our company is the right company to make you happy."

I think the hardest thing for me was getting to the point of hiring my 1st employee (contractor). I started from only one client. I only have a few, but they pay well.

Having clients is what pays my bills for now. I am now starting my own eCommerce websites to diversify my business. See, a client can always cut it's internet marketing company off. But if the internet marketing company begins to spin up businesses on it's own, it won't rely so heavily on clients.

I think all SEO Agencies should work with BOTH clients and start their own side businesses to diversify.

I think that is a great philosophy. Another (when it comes to clients) to strive for is that no single client should make up more than 10% of your total revenue. That way any client leaves it is not going to break your business. Now, I'm not saying fire clients that make up more than 10%, you just need to find 10 of them. :-)

As far as side businesses go. I'm a fan. Someday I want to pick Aaron Walls mind on this as I hear he is a master at diversification.

I started in a home office. I hired contracters thorugh odesk before hiring employees which I think is a good transition to help you learn how to delegate and then I hired a person to help do the work compared to selling the accounts. I was the main salesperson for a very long time as a good one costs a lot and nobody will ever close as well as the owner of a business. Get help with the work before having someone sell.

"My words are so fine, that people stand in line..." - Love that Burley rap.

What a great article and story to read. I'm 25 and strayed away from the norm a year and a half ago to start my own internet marketing company in Dallas. TONS of competition I know, but it's what I wanted to do. Your post has helped open my eyes and will help me decide which things to do without and which things to start doing in order to grow my business, while making an impact on the local SEO market.

Very nice mike. I share a somewhat similar story with a lot of success at Seo Hop.

Regarding your proposal I am reading words that work by Frank Luntz. In Reading the first chapter alone (don't skip the intro ;) ) I reworked my entire presentation/proposal . The past production closed sales at about 70%. This new production engages the client and allows them to visualize exactly what is going to happen. I do this by making each page a worksheet at the end. So by the time the presentation is over the client says to themselves there is no way that I cannot afford this. It is going to help my business increase substantially.

Also the reason I say don't skip the intro is because there are powerful words in there we all need. As an example on the first page of my presentation it shows the top 20 keywords with monthly volume next to it is all the conversion rates finally funneling down to the exact conversion rate for that client. And above these conversion rates the word IMAGINE stands out in the clients eyes.

One more thing. Never call a proposal a proposal. Call it a presentation or recommendation. Good luck bud. Maybe I will see you around.

I really enjoyed your story Mike. You make some great points that I think a lot of other internet marketing companies should take on board! The main point I take from this article is to simply just do a good job for your clients, I really like how you will look at every little thing that your company is doing and look to improve it and apologising (if necessary) to clients before simply presuming they are being unfair and asking too much. I imagine a lot of your success is down to this mentality.

Furthermore, I definitely agree about personal debt and would always encourage people to look at getting rid of their debt before embarking on personal endeavours! I myself am a fairly recently employed graduate so have fairly sizeable debts to get rid of, so I appreciate your insight on this.

Creating an agency is something I will definitely consider somewhere down the line and I think you make great points and a great template to a successful start-up (and future) which I will take with me for my future career.

Thanks Mike, you have shared about your whole business history and your personal with us. Surely You were coming from a lot of hard works and disappointed moments.. You have gotten good team and good family ..

Thanks. Coming from Burley, Idaho you learn how to work. I worked at my grandpa's heating and electric company and it was long hard days for a young boy but I'm grateful. I also was very motivated to educate myself so I wouldn't always work there! :-)

Awesome post! By far the best article I could have read this morning. You've basically gone through and answered most of the questions I had about starting up on my own without me asking. Definitely bookmarking this article for a re-read later. Thanks so much for sharing.

I asked a few people the type of questions they had about starting up and tried to base the lessons around them. I also clearly remember those moments of "Man I wish someone would have told me to do that" I am actually having one of those moments today as I realized that we need to get more feedback from our clients on a consistent basis to not just the project managers but to the company leadership to ensure that we are running a SERVICE not just doing SEO.

Great advice here, Mike. It helps to keep me inspired to reach for my own success.

As someone who has considered many times starting my own business, what advice would you give someone who has no financial start-up cash? If you recommend 3-6 months of float, is it bad to take out a loan to achieve this or work hard at a crappy 9-5 saving every penny until I get there? I have years and years of experience at agencies. I am considered an expert SEM that nobody knows about beyond my local market. I am not a blogger, I am not a good SEO. I am not a web developer. How can I create a business as an SEM expert when I cannot offer the other services companies are looking for? Would love anyone's feedback on how they got started and what are realistic expectations

Cold Calling Method : Its really worth ., but for an 100 call a single client will come in to business at 2nd level only ., So plan on working with participating discussions , chatting , mail , etc., Thanks for sharing ., this post multiples business .

Yes, a lot of businesses have found success in many marketing methods. I would say the average Small startup wont have to much success with cold calls without a script and a lot of hours which is not super possible if you are a one person shop.

I initially consumed this post on my phone, and then read again at my desk this morning. A serious amount of what you say resonates very heavily with us, and has given me serious food for thought.

We have always tried to be an "above board" transparent inbound marketing organisation. However, only last week we had a potential client approach us asking

" I have 15 words I want to pay £300 a month maximum and I want them top as fast as possible"

No matter how much we try and tell people this business model is dead (for quite a long time) it does not seem to register with them, and of course there are still a few questionable organisations who would gladly take their money (doing them more harm than good in the process).

On top of this, the client in question actually had pornographic websites linking to their domain (they are in the health and fitness niche) as well as link profile based very heavily around anchor text and the homepage. They were also completely in active in the social sphere.

So it is pretty likely they have very large hill to climb, an unrealistic expectation of budget.

What gets me frustrated is the fact that if you are a small local businessmen such as a plumber or a locksmith you aren't going to have very much budget, and your choices seem to be limited to things like yelp, yell etc or the sharks that will build terrible links to your site telling you all while that this is a good idea.

Thats the biggest challenge in really small SMB work. They dont get it and their whole internet marketing experience is taught to them over the phone from big box sells companies. I think that the only thing that will change it is time. Google is going to continue to get better and these businesses will wake up after failed cheap attempts and more and more local seo's will educate through meetups, chambers, etc and eventually the market will correct itself.

Surely the second one... On a serious note, I guess the point of being in the service and not SEO comes in here. They would eventually turn into good clients provided someone is able to explain the service part in their language.

This article is phenomenal. I think reading it once is not enough, we've to read it thrice or more than that. There is so much to learn from this post that I even took some points & gonna implement it when I'll start up my own company.
I really want to know that person whose single comment had a sparkling effect on you. This is the post of the year. I'm little sad for Blue Glass, really don't know such a big thing happened to them.

Thanks. The Blueglass situation was crazy and I think it really took a lot of people by major suprise as they seemed to be everywhere and doing everything. But too high of costs will never make up for a lack of revenue no matter your size. It's a great lesson for the industry. I hope we don't see it again.

Similar to you, I formed my company in 2009, without having worked in an agency first. My experience and understanding came from doing free work for clients over a period of years, whilst employed in a non-SEO role - but if I could go back and change that I would!

In the early days of building my business, working from home with 3 very young kids was extremely hard and each day's challenge was to focus on my work while being a dad. So, if I could add one point that really helped me out, it would be to get your own office (or office space) to separate your personal and professional life.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a doting dad too and loved sharing my time with them and building my business, but as demand outweighed supply, the stress and pressure that working from home brought with it, made home life very challenging.

I'm currently reading the e-Myth Revisited and can't recommend this important book highly enough too.

Lesson 1 really resonates for me and the need to sometimes re-assess paths that I'm taking to ensure they're still heading in the right overall direction. This is none more true than when we face challenges and need that extra something to help us keep moving forward.

Lesson 19 is another wake-up call, that I hope to address shortly with new services offered to a specific market-place.

Lastly, I'd add that one of the most important lessons your post underlines is that of having the right "mind-set", both in running, building and growing your own business and in overcoming the day-to-day challenges / struggles we all face - I think the key is to not let problems that arise, knock the wind out of you but to learn form them and move on asap.

You touched on this on your reply to @mackfogelson re more information being available on "working *on* your business, instead of just working *in* your business" (a favourite quote from e-Myth) via conferences - I've already requested that this topic be covered, to a few major conferences we have here in the UK - so here's hoping!

So thanks Mike, huge respect for writing such an inspirational and honest post.

I really hope to see that happen in the conference scene. And I hope to get back to England. I was there from 2003-2005 in the midlands. I still work from home about 50% of the time and kids are a major challenge but our office building in town doesn't have a private office space for myself. Just a conference room. So, I go in for meetings, etc. But when I write or make calls, I do it from home. But, my house is litteraly about 2 minutes from my office. Thanks for the great quote from E myth.

E-MYTH is something surely I shall ask all of the people especially new guys with guts to move on in this field.I am also facing this issue for some time.I have to keep on working all day to complete daily work but next day again come up with too much.I learn to delegate,train and make a process.
This thing is so important that no one can miss it in marketing field.

I don't know that any of the books on delegation will teach you anything you don't already know. You clearly know how to make lists, prioritize, and empower people to get things done and the books may bore you.

What I can share is that Fancy Hands helped me learn delegation. Check out this answer about virtual assistant services on Quora. While FH isn't the best, I keep it just to practice the art of delegating clearly and concisely to get small things done.

I am going to eventually upgrade to a more robust VA service as lack of capacity demands it.

I like it mike, You know what was I really like about every blog, It is shared through personal experiences starting from the ground level going to the part that success landed at the palm of both hands. Marketing with the intention of serving is the back bone of success than aiming for money which is only for short term.

Short term business decision making for profits leads to short term profits and a short term business. There are a lot of SMB's that are in Burley and have had businesses running for 50+ years. I like to talk to them even though they have a very old school mentality they definitely get the meaning of customer service, business retention, and weathering the constant storm.

I guess that's a good idea, learning's is unstoppable, you can get ideas from them which can be implored and use as weapon. Sometimes we can encounter peoples that despite of their unpleasant faces hide a big achievement of their lives. I mean we should never judge people by their outside appearance. I really salute for that.

As I read your article I felt a huge grin growing across my face. You seemed to be describing my journey albeit a couple of years ahead of me on the curve. There were so many similarities even down to not lying to clients and giving them 'added value reports'. I like to say that clients can get Data and Information anywhere, they are paying us for the Intelligence.

Thanks for sharing this post - quite apart from anything else it has just given me a huge warm feel good feeling, which was not what I was expecting this Monday morning :-)

Warm good feelings on Monday morning are a great way to start the week out! It always feels good knowing that you are making a lot of the right decisions for your business and it sounds like it took you a lot less time to figure them out than it did for me.

re: Lesson 8 Raise your prices; raise your minimums
I am at that point in my own business.How did you deal with existing clients? Did you grandfather their prices or simply announced prices are rising?

we have largely grandfathered pre pricing. But as we get new areas of service and can provide more options these initial clients have changed scope and budget without charging more for the exact same thing.

I have been working the Internet since the beginning circa 1994-1995 .. Yep I'm an old fart in the industry..
I must say that I often stop reading an article or blog on paragraph 2. That often where the bragging starts, or the badly researched advice starts. With your article I have read every single word you have written. Its so refreshing and absolutely inspiring to find honest advice and experience. I'm looking for more and look forward to reading that.

You have provided not only your success, but your failures as well. Heck you even provided links to the source.

I must say its advice like yours that is not only for business but life in general. You have renewed my passion for the Internet and people doing good . Stumbling on your article is sent from the heavens today, I really did need it. My favorite part is "Lesson 17: Pay yourself modestly" Having worked with so many that believe the big bucks start on day one before the work has even began.

Please Keep the articles coming and I wish you continued prosperity. With your approach and attitude to life in general you are already a success no matter what you do from this point forward. But dont let that stop you but please do allow it to motivate you even higher.

Thank you Greg. I hope to keep writing and moving away from strategy and tactics to include philosophy on occasions. It's an odd transformation to go from being an SEO to being a business owner. They are definitely NOT the same thing. Took me WAAAY to long to realize that.

Thanks for sharing this Mike...Beyond all the great tips mentioned, it is also a heartwarming tale of persistence, hard-work and constant learning - so essential for all the budding entrepreneurs out there.

I found myself chuckling at several of your points as I have either been there or are currently experiencing the same thing. You nailed it with this post. We are currently redoing our proposals for the third time and I like what you said about a live walkthrough. Most customers don't understand what we do so the more hands on we can be the better.

Its amazing how many people go through the exact same things in this line of work. There needs to be a support group. We have subscribed to the idea that a website should never be done. Theres always more to add, more to text, etc. I think our business processes are the same.

Your welcome. I really hope that it does save people a lot of "learning the hard way" time. It's hard not to look back and say things like "man if i would have done that where would I be today". But, at least for me I doubt I would have listened until I had to go through things for myself.

Ya Idaho haha! Couldn't agree with #6 any more. Managing expectation from the beginning, informing clients how we measure success, and talking the talk they do- in dollars/growth/ROI, not just rankings. Developing a personal relationship with a client will extend the duration of services if rough times arise, it's hard to fire a friend. Friends can talk and work things out, it's much easier to fire a stranger across the country, even if it was over a petty misunderstanding. Congrats on the growth and thanks for the transparency to help others grow.

This past year we tried to come up with really unique client Christmas gifts based on working with people in the companies. One of our clients conference room is full of candy, we sent them a 30 pound gummy bear. Another client always talked about a certain breed of dog so we sent him a stuffed version of that. The personal touch helps to take things beyond business. My team came up with ideas for each client and got it done. It was very cool.

Sydney is ranked the 10th most expensive city on the planet. It can be avoided, its just based on what you really want to do. $600,000 in Burley, Idaho would literally buy you a mansion. We built a 3700 square foot home with 4 bed 3 bath (with an unfinished basement) for $200,000 (ish). I did all the roofing, windows, tile, paint, doors, closets, landscaping myself and it completely sucked. But we were able to save a ton.

I love big cities. I visit them often and used to come home and tell my wife that we should move because the opportunity was so much bigger. But so are the costs, competition, etc. I am not going to be ignorant in thinking that avoiding personal debt is something that is easy, or even the best option for a lot of people. But it is by far the best option to avoid risk as an entrepreneur. We all are free to choose what our expenses are. So, that $600,000 2 bedroom unit better be worth it. ;-)

Congrats on your success! Many of the experiences that you had are ones that I have went through or am currently experiencing. This is a tough business at times, but choosing the right clients makes all the difference. It's something I've learned the hard way. This is definitely worth a re-read every few weeks.

I think I could write a pretty lengthy book with the mistakes that I have made in business/life already. Which means I could probably have a series by the time I'm 40. :-) Just yesterday we had a client that expressed a MASSIVE list of concerns that we hadn't heard before. They had been mounting for around 3 months and I was caught thinking --- Wow, we should have known about this the week is was an issue. So, back to the drawing boards.

An awesome story/journey you shared. I have came across your website before and love the personality, but now that I know the back story, I like that even better.

I used to be the jack of all trades and master of none guy. I realized (after awhile) that is not the best approach. Excellent advice from someone on SEObook. I see so many people in this space trying to do it all, very hard to start out that way.

Thanks. The decision to lead with "We Make Local SEXY" was very hard. We used to have a more corporate looking website. Im very grateful we did it as it has really helped to attract the right type of clients that fit our personalities. When a potential client starts with "I love your site" I am instantly more interested in them. If someone says they think it isn't very professional it throws a big red flag.

Really enjoyed reading your article and point number 9 was a real "right-on" moment for me. Money aside, dealing with those rare clients who only deal in negativity is a real drain on creativity and, in my opinion, the impact is much wider than just affecting the agency & client in question. A call I've made myself once in my career and I have never regretted it.

Hi Mike! This is really great post thank you for sharing your business story! Im in this business more than 8 years in Hungary and i just realized i still have to learn...:) I hope you ll continue this story.

Hi Pamela! Thanks so much for letting us know about that one -- I've removed the link and made a note above. While I appreciate your offering up an alternative, the link was in a direct quote from an email from 2009, so it's probably best to leave it as-is (since David didn't actually recommend your blog to Mike back then). Thanks for the kind words, though. =)

I think in 2014, there's are technological solutions for internet marketing agency.We now have new technologies allowing us to provide better and quicker online solution to client.

On of them is Web Agency Website Builder for instance.It's a mobile friendly multiple site builder allowing people to provide websites to client.

I think if we combine your advice in this article together with the power of this script.We can achieve zero to millions.Because I think the internet is changing and we must adapt to the latest technology.